Development of a text readability assessment system to support reading activities in Japanese language education

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25370573
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Japanese language education
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: LEE Jaeho 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 准教授 (20450695)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): HASEBE Yoichiro 同志社大学, グローバル・コミュニケーション学部, 准教授 (90353135) ; KUBO Kei 大阪大学, 日本語日本文化教育センター, 非常勤講師 (10748685)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 読解教育 / 教育工学 / 文章の難易度 / リーダビリティ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The research presented in this paper aims at advancing text readability studies for Japanese and devises a practical and useful system that contributes to Japanese language teaching, learning, and research. More specifically, utilizing leveled corpora mainly consisting of text from textbooks of Japanese, we produced the following formula to measure the readability level of a given text in six scales: X = {mean length of sentence * -0.056} + {proportion of kango * -0.126} + {proportion of wago * -0.042} + {proportion of number of verbs among all words * -0.145} + {proportion of number of auxiliary verbs * -0.044} + 11.724 (R2=.896) . The formula was tested against another set of leveled text in Japanese to prove its reliability. Lastly, the method was implemented in a computer system that calculates and produces the estimated level of a text via a web-based online interface.

Free Research Field

日本語教育